Kim asked a question about threshold field tests and heart rate that I bet has crossed many instructors’ minds.
Just recently I gave an LT field test to my students and re-configured their zones to match Spin Heart Rate zones. I had them change their ages in their watches so that the zones would match up. Some participants (7 out of 19) scored extremely lower than their age. Now, I understand that it has nothing to do with age, but what can be the reason for such a huge discrepancy and how do you explain to them without them getting their shorts all bunched up? I know that during the test some individuals could have handled adding more resistance cardiovasculary [sic] but their legs couldn’t handle it. If that’s the case, how do we go about training to improve? Any insight to this would be greatly appreciated…
There are actually two excellent questions in here. For the moment, I’m going to tackle the heart rate and age question—the answer will be long enough, I assure you! I’ll cover the second question on improving students’ abilities to push more resistance for long periods in a separate post.
First a little background on what Kim is asking about re-configuring their zones to match the Spinning® zones.